Parallels in Computing

A number of years ago, I ran a fairly large (up to 24) multi-line BBS, first as The Signpost and then as GreyMatter. Many SysOps (System Operators or the geeks who ran the BBSs) noticed that in January, there was a marked increase of callers that were absolutely clueless in their behavior, flaming where flaming was not allowed, poor quality configurations (ddoouubbllee tteexxtt,, eettcc..) TYPING IN ALL CAPS. The consensus was that these were kids who had gotten a new modem for Christmas and were online for the first time and rather than lurk and learn, they barged on in with no regard to anyone else. Fast forward to 2008 This January, I have been noticing a major increase in attempts at comment and trackback spam as posted by zombie systems (there is a specific signature to their software) - talking an increase of 100 times. All of this crap gets blocked but still, it is a major annoyance, it takes CPU time that I am paying for and 98% of the people that run these networks are stupid script kiddies. The other 2% are criminals. It struck me today that January's increase is a result of all the kids getting their first computer for Christmas, logging into all of the KEWL LEEE7 websites they can get their grubby little mitts on and promptly filling their clean new system with all sorts of zombie crap. Happy holidays...